# An Honest Farewell

By [Brandon Donnelly](https://brandondonnelly.com) · 2017-02-27

alex-bozikovic, an-honest-farewell, bathurst-street, bloor-and-bathurst, cities, globe-and-mail, honest-eds, honest-eds-signage, mirvish-village, redevelopment, toronto, uncategorized, urbanism

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I spent Saturday evening at Honest Ed’s for [An Honest Farewell](https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2017/02/26/heres-how-toronto-said-farewell-to-honest-eds.html). It was a lot of fun. There were many familiar faces. And it felt very Toronto. See above photo.

But part of me felt a bit phony pretending to celebrate the end of 68 years of operations. Truth be told, I’m not sure I ever bought anything from Honest Ed’s. Had it turned into a 3 floor super club sooner, perhaps I would have spent a bit more time there over the years.

To me, Honest Ed’s was great big signage. 

When I was a kid, my mom used to work on Bathurst Street just north of Bloor and I would go downtown with her early in the morning before school. It would still be dark out and I remember being so captivated by the bright lights of Honest Ed’s. That’s what the city meant to me. Lights. Flash. Excitement. It was where I wanted to be.

A portion of [the signage is being preserved](https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2017/02/08/preservation-of-honest-eds-sign-part-of-new-movement-sign-ism-keenan.html) and moved to Yonge and Dundas. But otherwise, this past weekend was the official end of an era. What matters now is the future of [Mirvish Village](http://mirvish-village.com/). And the future is exciting.

I’ll end with an excerpt from [a recent Globe and Mail article](https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/news/toronto/honest-eds-redevelopment-shows-what-it-takes-to-make-a-village/article34131651/?ref=http://www.theglobeandmail.com&service=mobile) by [Alex Bozikovic](https://twitter.com/alexbozikovic):

_“The new development at Mirvish Village, after two years of conversation between developers Westbank, locals and the city, is inching closer to approval, with a new proposal submitted in January to the city. Westbank paid $72-million for the site, a big number, and yet the result is as good as private development gets in Toronto. It features meaningful preservation of heritage buildings, a serious sustainability agenda, and affordable housing – not to mention an architectural and leasing strategy geared at making the place as lively as possible, even a bit weird.”_

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*Originally published on [Brandon Donnelly](https://brandondonnelly.com/an-honest-farewell)*